In addition to their primary use for the transportation of goods, intermodal freight containers are known to provide extremely secure storage structures. To be sure, a break in generally requires a blow torch or dynamite. As a downside, however, even a small intermodal freight container weighs several thousand pounds. As a result, an expensive and special use tilt bed roll off truck, a small crane or a huge forklift is generally required to move and position such containers and transportation of even empty containers is virtually limited to semi trailer type trucks aided by loading equipment at each end of the journey. Even if such trucking facilities are available, transportation of substantially empty intermodal freight containers is extremely wasteful as a result of fuel consumption alone.
With the shortcomings of the prior art clearly in mind, it is an overriding object of the present invention to improve over the prior art by providing a shipping container transport system that enables a medium duty truck to be utilized for the efficient transportation over any distance, short or long, of a substantially empty intermodal freight container. Additionally, it is an object of the present invention to provide such a shipping container transport system that also makes provision for picking up and placing containers. Still further, it is an object of the present invention to provide such a shipping container transport system that is capable of picking up and placing containers with the most limited access to the sides of the container, thereby accommodating containers that cannot be handled by forklifts.